April 3, 2010

The tide - and huge waves - taking a chunk out of the beaches

ARROYO SECO, Jalisco, Mexico - When we arrrived in December, the beaches here extended out, oh, say another 50-75 meters compared to where they are now.

What happened?

No one knows, but the combination of unusually high tides and some pounding storms have pulled a lot of sand out into the ocean.

Beach erosion at Playa Chica

The small lake in the photo above - created by the waves breaking over the beach - had been the campground of a half-dozen tents the day before. The campers scurried pretty quickly when the first set of waves inundated their campsites. Several trucks had to be moved muy rapido, too.

Down at Tenacatita, however, the beach seems to be growing farther out into the sea. Mother Nature might be just moving a little of her furniture around.

In the meantime, swimmers on Good Friday were confronted with a pretty ugly algae bloom. It didn't smell like Red Tide, but it kept a most people out of the water.

Red Tide? Maybe

Good Friday also brought the arrival of two more turtles to Arroyo Seco's Playa Grande. Unlike Thursday's turtle walk, the crowds of vacationistas seemed much more polite and gave the tortugas some space as they lumbered up the beach to lay their eggs.

The turtle in the video below, was very determined and came ashore much more quickly than Thursday's arrival.

About el Captain

Michael J. Fitzgerald has been a journalist for 40 years, working as a writer and editor for newspapers, magazines and web publications. In 2014 he published the novel, "The Fracking War." In 2015, he published his second novel, "Fracking Justice." He writes or contributes to five blogs. He and his wife Sylvia Fox are the owners and principal partners in *subject2change Media, a multi-media firm involved in print, video and broadcast. He writes a weekly column, "Write On" for the daily 'Finger Lakes Times' newspaper in Geneva, NY. He was a journalism professor at CSU Sacramento from 1986 to 2011 teaching Newswriting, Column Writing and Magazine Writing.